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Crowder, Dr. David L. Oral History Project
Margaret Stewart Miller - Life
Experiences
By Margaret Stewart Miller
February 17, 1980
Box 2 Folder 15
Oral Interview conducted by Brenda Marie Bates
Transcribed by Maren Miyasaki October 2005
Brigham Young University- Idaho
MM: I was born in Blue Creek, raised in Wellsville, and in Blue Creek they had a lot of
Indians.
BB: They did?
MM: Ah- hah and mother lost me once. This was when I was about three or four and she
use to buy milk off this Indian woman.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And she feed it cow milk, for a long time she had goats she liked this kinda farm.
And I never did [ know] her name, but I wandered down to the river you know, and I
wanted to sit there and watch the waves go by.
BB: Waves?
MM: The waves.
BB: Oh yeah.
MM: And, somehow, I… this Indian woman told mother and mother told me, by golly,
one of her boys found me sleeping in the wagon box somewhere.
BB: Wagon box?
MM: Ah- hah, in the wagon box.
BB: Did they have wagons then?
MM: Oh, they had wagons and tents and everything like that. I forgot to go, to go home,
and I just stayed there.
BB: Uh- huh.
MM: And oh, I said to that little boy, mommy will be lookin’ for me and I better go, well
momma will take ya back, and I believe he never did tell her because oh, I was there for
three days.
BB: You was?
MM: In the wagon box sound asleep.
BB: For three days?
MM: Yeah, and mother she lost me. She couldn’t find me, she couldn’t find me. They
had boy scouts; they had everyone around out hunting me, trying to find me. This
woman, this Indian woman come to mother she says I brought you some milk and she,
she says kinda not very sociable, “ Boy I’ve got some bad news to tell ya, I lost my little
girl.” “ Well, there is a little girl out at my place maybe its your child and my boy found
her.” She says, “ I wonder if it be my girl.” She says, “ Well you come to my place and if
it’s your child I couldn’t get nothing out of her, out [ of] me, me, ya know.”
BB: Yeah.
MM: I said we got to go home, and she asked if her, has any Indian, in that woman asked
me she says, “ Oh I’ll take you home in a few hours. But I’ll take this to your mother,”
and she, I wouldn’t go with her. I come by myself and I’m going on myself.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And so she told her you come find her and mother went, she told dad and they
rushed over there, in the buggie they had a bad buggie about as a bad as a horse yeah
( inaudible) went over there by golly that’s our child, they call her Margaret, I got up and
looked, yes me, “ I’m glad to see ya mama.” “ Where might the devil did you go?” I says,
“ I went down to the river.” Boy says we found her down by the river. I didn’t know who
[ she] was. She wandered in the wagon box where we always keep our tools, and she was
sound asleep. She was so tired, and she was gonna walk home and in a little while and
mother was worried time, to death. But sure kept a watch on me afterwards.
BB: She did?
MM: That’s the last time I knew that this Indian woman, she was by golly, mother says,
“ I’ll pay you.” “ Oh, I don’t want anything for ya, I didn’t know who she was. I was
gonna call the cops [ to] see if they lost anybody if the police force, and they had the boy
scouts out after me, and I didn’t know anything about it. I was little you, you know.
BB: How old was you Grandma?
MM: I was about three or four years old.
BB: Oh, you were little.
MM: And I remember going to the river, but I don’t remember going to this Indian’s
place, if only I’d slept in the wagon box.
We lived in Blue Creek [ a] long, long time. I don’t remember how many years
and then, then mother and dad moved to Wellsville. They finished raising me there, and
then we stayed there mother and dad, and to go from Wellsville and ( inaudible) to get our
groceries she always took me after that “ I’m gonna cling onto Margaret, I’m not going to
lose her every time.”
BB: In Blue Creek where they lost you at?
MM: Yeah, Blue Creek.
BB: Where’s Blue Creek at?
MM: Blue Creek is way over the mountains way past Tremont all the way past Tremont.
It’s a big, it’s got a lot of land. They only have one or two houses is all where this Indian
woman lived in Blue Creek. An’ they said they were going to Utah so they could be
among the Mormons. An’ I don’t know whether they got there or not. But I never seen
them after that, I don’t know what becomed of her. But mother remembered [ the Indian
woman] though, buyed milk and stuff from her an’ then she was awfully good to her.
BB: Sounds like she was a nice lady.
MM: She was a nice lady, but she had children of her own and nobody claims her I’m
gonna. But I don’t know how or where I’d land to.
BB: Did you go to grade school Grandma?
MM: Yeah, I went to grade school.
BB: Where at?
MM: I went to Wellsville that was when I lived in Wellsville for quite a while. George
had a sister named Beenlee.
BB: Beenlee?
MM: Beenlee, and she lived in Wellsville.
BB: Who is this girl, who’s Beenlee?
MM: Well, my dad’s sister.
BB: Your dad’s sister?
MM: My dad’s sister- in- law.
BB: Sister- in- law?
MM: And we lived in part of her place ‘ til mother and dad got us a place in Wellsville,
and we got a place there and lived for quite a while. An’ then, an’ then we moved from
Clifton Wellsville to River Heights.
BB: River Heights?
MM: ( Inaudible) That’s where I went to grade school is River Heights.
BB: Oh, River Heights Grade School.
MM: Oh, and I was, took me to grade school when I was six years old.
BB: When you were six years old?
MM: Yeah.
BB: Oh.
MM: And I went there in River Heights School, of course its in Wards now.
BB: It’s in Wards?
MM: Uh- hah, it’s different like first, second, and third. But it’s one big ward.
BB: Yeah.
MM: It’s, we lived on a place there an’ my father starts ( inaudible) well daddy wanted to
build onto it. It was just two dinky rooms to build onto it, and when dad was young, he
had a, there’s a shack down by the cemetery.
BB: One over here?
MM: Dad and the men move that shack down and made another room of it. An’ they,
they met Rennes use to work on it. But we lived there on the hill for a while ‘ til they got
the place fixed on the other, on there in River Heights. Good place there so we lived
there for awhile and we use to go around the mountains and pick flowers and things like
that.
BB: You did? You like flowers?
MM: Sun Flowers, Sun Flowers.
BB: Sun Flowers.
MM: There pretty flowers and we use to, what do you call ‘ em, Figalillies.
BB: They’re what?
MM: Figalilles.
BB: Figalillies?
MM: You remember them look like with Figalillies, with your orange flowers with the
( inaudible) in the middle.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Well, we picked some of them, we’d take them home, and put them in the vase, and
then, then we played in the mud. We made mud pies and everything we stayed out on the
lawn and made mud pies, and we enjoyed it. And mother says by golly, I had better take
a picture of Margaret and Rennes there out there a playing in the, making pies and make
dishes, cup, and things like that. I never did get to see that picture afterward, don’t know
where it went to.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I would of liked to had it.
BB: Yeah.
MM: We got to keep praying about ourselves and everybody around us and passin’ by
( inaudible) on the streets side we got some children. Two girls’ mother had a boy once,
but it was born dead.
BB: It was?
MM: She had a miscarriage.
BB: Oh.
MM: Just us girls. It was sad about the baby ( inaudible).
BB: So Rennes was two and you were five or six?
MM: I might have been older than that ‘ cause I was running around like a chicken with
its head off. We lived in that house down there.
BB: So how many years did you go to school there?
MM: Four years.
BB: Four years?
MM: Or five years.
BB: Four or five?
MM: I went five years steady every year ‘ cause one year anybody who went to school for
a year at the end of the year you got a prize. I went every morning to school.’
BB: You did?
MM: And I never even caught a cold that I remember.
BB: Boy.
MM: I was healthy too. But in that same year, in the year ( in audible).
BB: You got a doll?
MM: A doll.
BB: You still have it?
MM: No, I don’t know what happened to it. At the end of that year, they gave me a doll
for a prize. That’s what I got paid at school.
BB: That’s pretty neat.
MM: They had ones that you squeeze and cries and weens and eyes batt. Another girl, a
boyfriend, oh boy we had fun!
BB: You had a boyfriend?
MM: Yeah, I had a boyfriend. I don’t know who he was.
BB: You can’t remember his name.
MM: I can’t remember his name; he was about two years older than I was.
BB: He was?
MM: But, we went together in school. He called me and I called to him, and he said
when I got older or a certain age I’m gonna marry you Margaret. What? What’s
marriage? I didn’t know what, what’s marriage? I didn’t know what marriage was then.
BB: How old was you?
MM: Oh, I guess I was seven or eight years old.
BB: Wow.
MM: An’ I says, I say it’s a long, long ways, I don’t even know what marriage is, do
you? Well, momma and daddy got married why can’t we get [ married]? I says, “ We
can’t get married now. We don’t even know [ what] marriage life is.” I didn’t then.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And then he says, “ How was we born?” I says, “ I don’t know, ask your mother and
dad how was I born?” ( Inaudible)
BB: Go ahead.
MM: And oh, I hated to explain this… But we moved there, dad wanted to live closer to
the, to the temple.
BB: He did?
MM: And then I don’t know, I guess I was about 18 or 19 years old or somewhere in
there.
BB: 18 or 19.
MM: Yeah then.
BB: That’s when you moved over there by the Logan Temple?
MM: That’s when we moved over there to Third East.
BB: Third East?
MM: Let’s see, at Bishop Benson’s place.
BB: You lived in the same place he lived at?
MM: That’s a block, the Fifth Ward meeting house back east. Three or four churches we
lived where, quite a while in the back of Bishop Benson’s old place me and mother didn’t
like it there and dad didn’t like it there.
BB: They didn’t? How old, how old were [ you] now, 17 or 18?
MM: I believe I was about 18. I, I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I was old
enough to… I went to school too.
BB: Where did you go to school at?
MM: At the Junior High.
BB: Junior High?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Where do you go to Junior High at? Here?
MM: Right here in Logan.
BB: Right here in Logan? Oh.
MM: Right here in Logan I went to school for a long while, maybe two or three years. I
didn’t get to senior high ‘ cause dad didn’t have enough money to put me there.
BB: So you didn’t go to high school?
MM: I didn’t. I didn’t go any further than the Junior High School.
BB: So you just went… Did you go to the ninth grade in junior high?
MM: Yeah.
BB: You did?
MM: Yeah, I believe the ninth grade.
BB: Ya did. You didn’t get to go to school anymore?
MM: I didn’t get to go to school after that. I worked out an’ took care of the kids.
BB: Ya did?
MM: And did house work and things like that.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I wished I coulda gone to senior high, but I thought by golly if I made enough
money I’d start [ to go] to the senior high, but I ( inaudible) to go. You had to pay for the
books and your cards and everything.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I had a girl friend that went there, but I didn’t have the money to go.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Dad have the money to send me, that’s things we had to work out. ‘ Cause we went
to church there, ta [ to] eleventh ward church there. Oh it was down in, in the basement
still where dad he got so ill that’s where he died.
BB: Where’s this at?
MM: It was down on Third East North.
BB: Is that the house you…?
MM: Way down there by the railroad tracks. What do you call it? Third South, that’s
what it is. Third South.
BB: That’s where he died?
MM: That’s where dad died.
BB: How did he die, Grandma?
MM: Well, he died with a stroke.
BB: Stroke?
MM: Dad had three strokes. Oh, I was about 20 or 21 when dad died.
BB: You were 21 then, about 21?
MM: About 20, about 21 when dad, dad died.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Rennes was living in Logan, she was married.
BB: She was married?
MM: Yeah, she was married.
BB: When did she get married?
MM: Oh, she got married in Logan November.
BB: November? Do you remember what year?
MM: Oh, I don’t know, let’s see when. She was born November 8th, oh January 8th,
January 8th, she was born January 8th, and then after I was out a year she got married
before Thanksgiving. ‘ Cause we had a big dinner on that Thanksgiving that day.
BB: Yeah.
MM: She was married then. Me and mother use to sit up takin’ care of dad. She’d sleep
one night and I’d sleep one night. She’d stay up and take care of him, but he got bed- fast
and dad was 71 or 81 years old when he died, he died 19… What was that, I got in the
book.
BB: Okay, that’s okay Grandma.
MM: I can’t, I know it’s 8… 19… Something.
BB: Yeah. Hey, Grandma when did you start sewing? You’re always crocheting and
everything.
MM: Took it in school.
BB: Took it in school, did you start out in grade school?
MM: I started out in grade school and when I worked at it, I started to cooking; mother
showed me how to cook.
BB: She did?
MM: A time or two and then I worked at it, worked and worked at cookin’. Worked a
good many places in Logan, I worked for a Doctor Windle Budge.
BB: That’s who you worked for?
MM: And I worked for a medical doctor oh since, I know the doctor, but I can’t think of
his name.
BB: Yeah.
MM: She had three little boys.
BB: Well, you sure did a lot of sewing.
MM: A lot of sewing between times.
BB: Yeah.
MM: A lot of fancy work and I did crochet work and I called her and I got a, I got, went
uptown and got patterns. My girlfriend use ta [ to], showed me how to do it.
BB: They did?
MM: Fancy work because, oh she never get onto that, that oh you, you will in time
Margaret.
BB: So is that all that [ you] did, you have any other hobbies that you liked to do?
MM: Oh, I liked to draw.
BB: You liked to draw?
MM: Yeah.
BB: So you have any of your drawings?
MM: Paintings.
BB: Or your paintings?
MM: Oh, I lost it all after I don’t know where it all went to, but—
BB: Yeah.
MM: If I ever find ‘ em, they must be somewhere around here. Ever find ‘ em when I get
better.
BB: Well Grandma.
MM: And if I ever find anything this side of painting.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Well that picture you give, give me, everybody thought that was sure nice I told
‘ em you done it.
BB: That’s nice.
MM: It sure [ is] pretty, I laid it down on, then I was afraid it would get knocked down
and get broke.
BB: Yeah. What else did you like to do besides drawing and painting?
MM: Oh, I liked to go dancing.
BB: You like to go dancing?
MM: I use to go to a lot of dances.
BB: A lot of ‘ em huh?
MM: And they have the Poladore in Logan I use to go with.
BB: The what?
MM: The Poladore.
BB: What’s that?
MM: It’s a dance ball.
BB: Oh.
MM: And [ I] use to go there with Blanche, Mrs. Ointments daughter.
BB: Yeah.
MM: The one that died, I use to go with her. We’d go together whenever we’d go out
there to the dances. I says, I can’t dance, oh you can too. If I can dance you can dance,
well she never sat a dance.
BB: She did.
MM: Some often danced with boyfriends I din’t. I din’t know them very good, they
started drinking. I says ah- hah I’m never going dancing again, tell her. ‘ Cause.
BB: Your boyfriend this the same one you had before or a different one?
MM: No, different one.
BB: Oh, do you remember [ what] his name is?
MM: Don’t know his name now.
BB: That’s alright.
MM: Ron Van Wing.
BB: He, he.
MM: But he was just a friend. I’d stop dancing ( inaudible) an’ then I danced with
another one that I was going to school with, even at church I says I’ll get him in another
dance so I didn’t go with him very much. I might be into something else I don’t want to
get into.
BB: Yeah.
MM: An’ I quit going to the dances. Then, but this Dorothy Cooper, she Blanches’ sister.
BB: Her name Dor-, Blanches’ sisters?
MM: Blanches.
BB: Dorothy Cooper.
MM: No, Dorothy Cooper. As in was ( inaudible). She got married she, she had water in
her legs, bad water, she had bad legs too.
BB: She did.
MM: She died. She, she’s been married four or five times.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And she died. That was Blanche’s sister, the one that lives in Salt Lake. She, she’s
had six boys herself, an’ two girls, is it done? ( Inaudible)
BB: Oh.
MM: That a, and dad went.
BB: When your dad went.
MM: Ah- hah, dad met George, dad came home and told me about him. George is the one
for ya ( Inaudible). An’ dad told me about him. I don’t want to marry no man! He
looked older than he was, and I went with him a time or two. An’ dad told me he was a
temple worker, well the heck he was!
BB: Your dad was?
MM: Well, he was no temple worker than the man in the moon!
BB: Your dad told you George was a temple worker, and he wasn’t, ( laugh).
MM: I told dad he, you lied to me, what have I done now? Well, George told me [ he]
wasn’t a temple worker, and you told me he was, well he was-- he’s no temple worker
anymore than the man in the moon nor me.
BB: So that’s how you met him?
MM: I met him then, then got I married to him that’s when I married him. I says, “ If I
would of known that I wouldn’t of married outside the church.” He says, “ Well I’m sorry
we’re married now!” I says, “ You should have told me or dad should have told me.” I
guess he didn’t know either.
BB: You did, you date him?
MM: Oh yeah, we’ve been going together for a month and then he never told me. I asked
him all about him, his parents, he says his died, they lived down in the old factory. I
asked him how old he was, he goes 26 or 27 years old. I got mad, 27 an’ dad says, “ he’s
a temple worker he’ll be good to ya, and everything and you got to go out with him.” [ I]
says, “ Is he married, no well I says he old enough to be my grandfather.” “ Oh he is not,”
dad says. I says, “ Just ‘ cause everybody’s [ a] temple worker I, you think I ought to
marry ‘ em, ha.” I says, “ Can’t I have my say?” “ Ya suit yourself. In we’s sits down and
read the Bible and everything to dad, and I says, “ Yes, why don’t you tell dad the truth of
it.” I told dad afterwards after he told me he wasn’t a Mormon and he and…
BB: So George wasn’t a Mormon?
MM: Well, he was Mormon, but…
BB: He was?
MM: But he didn’t believe in temple work, and I said, “ Well you went to the temple,
that’s where you’ve been.” “ Well, I went with someone else that’s where I meet your
dad.” Well I says, “ Why didn’t you keep it up? You should go to the temple,” I says.
Dad we must go to the temple, he says he use to work in the temple a lot.
BB: Your dad did?
MM: Yes dad use to.
BB: Oh.
MM: He use to go [ to] the temple and work for the dead and work for himself and for
mother and he’d, I was baptized when I was eight years old in the temple.
BB: In the temple?
MM: Inside the temple.
BB: In Logan?
MM: Uh- hum.
BB: Wow. That’s pretty neat.
MM: And Rennes was born, she was baptized in the Logan Temple. I think dad and
mother baptism was performed in Salt Lake, and uh, mother was borned in the hospital. I
don’t know how they meet one another, that was, but I guess.
BB: Yeah.
MM: But I went through the temple when Bessie was down when they was dedicating,
when they was, they fixing the temple grounds.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Everybody had to go to the temple in Ogden or Salt Lake ‘ cause they were fixing
the Logan Temple over.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And when they was going to dedicate it then I had the chance to go with one of the
members of the ward here, Sister ( inaudible) was going to take me through but, and
Bessie come down. We went, had shopping that day, and she said, “ Mother, why can’t
we.” She said, “ Don’t you want to go to the temple.” I says yes, but I says I’ve got no
recommend from the bishop. Well, you don’t need a recommend to go through it. An’
they’re dedicating the Logan Temple, everybody’s going, it was free to the public and
they was fixing ta [ to] make it real nice.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Like a palace, well we went and I says, “ Yes I’d like to go,” an’ so we went [ with]
her and me an’ Joe an’ Hanse to the temple. So Hanse did get to see the temple.
BB: Yeah.
MM: An’ why I was going through I had meeting first, we [ had] to go into a great big
room and they was tellin’ how the temple was built and how much it cost and everything.
An’ so we went in, they give ya a number to take care of ya, and you take that number to
one of the officiators. An’ ( inaudible) and a first one they give me one and everyone, and
this number we give ya if anybody ain’t able to go up them steps we have an elevator,
and they can’t walk just let us know, the lady, the stairway there and she’ll take ya on the
elevator. You know them steps I thought I could walk, I tried very, very hard to climb up
‘ em. I walk up them things and Bessie walked all the steps, and I didn’t think, well I
must of gotten tired, over tired, or something, all of a sudden Bessie looked at me, “ Are
you all right?” I says, “ Yes, I’m still trying” an’ Hanse says to Bessie, “ I don’t think
Margaret can stand to walk up these stairs,” and I heard him say that. I got so I got up on
the second stairs way an’ I fainted.
BB: My goodness.
MM: An’ I was hot too. I stayed still an’ that lady at the top of the stairs she says. “ Oh
my gosh, is this your mother?” And Bessie says, “ Yes.” “ Oh,” she says, “ She can’t walk
it we… No I can see that she can’t I’ll send the elevator man up to pick her, put her in the
elevator, take her around in that elevator.” I didn’t know anything ‘ til I come to. Bessie
was worried about me.
BB: She was?
MM: An’ so was Hanse.
BB: Yeah.
MM: An’ this man or whoever ( inaudible) goes a, Hanse or Joe went with Bessie, and
they went into a different room and Bessie stays with me, this the first time this has ever
been done like this. She says, “ I can’t stand it ( inaudible) an’ when I got up on the first
floor. Hanse come up to me and says, “ Are you alright?” Bessie says, “ Yeah, I think
she’s fine now.” She says just got over being sick an’ dizzy, she just fainted. On them
steps, I was hot and feverish. This lady she gave me an ice cold glass of water, and I
drank it up an’ I was alright.
BB: Did that happen just a few years ago?
MM: Ah- hah, it’s when the temple, it’s been just a few years you, an’ I thought, oh my
gosh I’ll never go to the temple again like that. I’ve got millions of places to go, yes you
will, you’ll get over it you’ll, you’ll go through the temple again, get a recommend from
the bishop and you’ll go through the temple.
BB: Have you gone through since then?
MM: I haven’t gone through; I haven’t got around to it.
BB: Oh, okay.
MM: I never get it done, a recommend from the bishop to go through, I was going to one
day, but something came up. I didn’t feel very good or something, and I didn’t go and
John, John came over and says, “ You, told me, I’ll get you one from the bishop.
BB: Yeah, well Grandma.
MM: I want to go through the temple with someone there’s, some names there’s. Jon and
mother and the family and grandkids and the bishop told me, oh must have been last
spring. When could [ I] go to the temple? Oh, you let me know when you want to go
through, you’ve been through? I says, “ Yes I was baptized in the Logan Temple.” “ Oh
okay.” And I bore testimony so many times in the church and I’ll, oh Margaret
( intelligible) bears testimony and tells ya how she feels of how good people are to her.
Don’t worry the people too much and do things for myself and…
BB: Well, Grandma when you met, when you married George did you find out that he
was married before?
MM: No, he never told me, tell after we were married.
BB: ‘ Til after you was married, he did and how many kids did he have?
MM: He’s got one son and one daughter.
BB: He.
MM: I never did see them.
BB: You never did see ‘ em.
MM: Never see ‘ em.
BB: ( Laugh) Do you know what there names are?
MM: All I seen was one son in Salt Lake and his name is George, Mel, Mel Wallston. I
seen him, but I never and his wife and other kids, but I never seen his second son.
BB: ( Laugh) Did you have any kids from George?
MM: Oh no.
BB: You never?
MM: I didn’t have any kids from George, he did.
BB: Then George died, he past away.
MM: Then George died, then I married Joe.
BB: Then you, well how’d you meet Joe?
MM: In Logan.
BB: In here, here in Logan?
MM: Yeah.
BB: Where did you meet him at?
MM: Oh I was, I meet him at the gym theater.
BB: My goodness.
MM: An’ well, an’ I, I seen him a time or two, but ta [ to] Marie Ander Pain got me
acquainted with Joe.
BB: He did?
MM: This man here.
BB: Yeah, I remember him.
MM: Oh. A May Cordon told me about him, told me he was lonely told me he wants a
woman. I says, “ Oh, I can’t get married, I don’t want to get married then.”
BB: You never?
MM: No, I told ‘ em I was married once an’ I don’t want to get married an’ she told Joe,
this May Cordon told Joe, “ Margaret don’t want to ya for a while to, ya for a while don’t
feel like she wants to up and marry anyone right now.
BB: Ah- hah.
MM: And he says, “ Well okay, I won’t worry her, tell [ her] she makes up her mind so I
says I don’t mind. I’ll wait for ya.”
BB: He did.
MM: And ( unintelligible) an’ I.
< Interruption>
MM: I says, “ I know a, don’t know yet.” I guess we were going with each other for
months, then we stopped going for awhile, an’ then he called me up and asked if we
wanted to go out, he’d take me out for dinner. I alright ( unintelligible) that night I said
Orerson ( unintelligible) he says okay an’ I still like him and, but Joe told me once he was
married once too. That was before we got married.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I was gonna tell ya I was married once before. He had one child come in its from
the baby and his wife and child stayed there for quite awhile an’ they couldn’t get along
with this parents, and she moved out of the house and took the baby with her.
BB: Ha.
MM: An’ the baby took sick and died an’ it’s as the first, and I never did get to the baby.
Joe was married before, he married me, but yet he told me about that before he married
me.
BB: That’s good.
MM: And I’m glad he did if he wouldn’t [ have] told me it would be a mess like George.
BB: Did you have any kids from Joe? You never?
MM: No, I had no kids from Joe.
BB: You never.
MM: Then I don’t know you remember, I don’t think you do before I met Joe I went out
with Francis Schaffner an’ I, he was gonna marry me in, about in August.
BB: Oh. Can you tell me a little bit about him Grandma?
MM: Well, Bessie knows it.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I don’t know if she ever told you or not anything about.
BB: She mentioned it to me, but I don’t know anything.
MM: Well, Francis Schaffner, I use to go with him when Nettie Schaffner, a friend who
use to come from Buffalo, New York, and I got acquainted with Francis before I even
met Joe.
BB: Oh. How did you meet Francis?
MM: Francis he’s a good kid, he’s good lookin’ but he is younger than any [ of] my
husbands.
BB: Oh.
MM: He was, oh he took me out to dinner, parties, dancing, an’ all things like that. We
got tangled up with each other. Ya know.
BB: He didn’t marry ya, he…
MM: He got me a family now, an’ I blamed it onto him an’ he denied it. I got a picture
of him.
BB: You do?
MM: Yeah somewhere around here, I just had it the other day.
BB: Can you show it to me later?
MM: But he was a good guy. He never smoked, he never drank, an’ he took a likin’ to
me an’ he says maybe I’ll marry ya afterwards, but he never did, an’ he went off with
another woman an’ I never did see him again or her.
BB: Huh.
MM: He said he’d write to me, an’ he said he had a job, an’ he was going to Buffalo New
York to see his mother.
BB: That’s where he is?
MM: An’ I guess that’s where he is, I don’t know if he got tangled up with another
woman or what, but I never did see him. But I knew him when ever he goes to Logan.
BB: Really?
MM: An’ I told ya I heard, I said ( Inaudible) Francis now I says by golly you get me this
way I’ll beat the head off you ( inaudible). I was yours then, an’ I just didn’t know the
difference I was just about, just about like Lorna.
BB: Oh.
MM: An’ I was a little older than Lorna, I should have had more sense.
BB: Things happen.
MM: But things happen so quick an’ he said he’d marry me. That’s afterwards when
he’s get a stay with job, he had a job in Logan he wouldn’t…
BB: What did he do?
MM: He was working on ditches for the commissioner an’ oh, what do you call it Utah
Power and Light Company that’s what it is. Jon used to work on the Telephone
Company.
BB: Oh.
MM: All the time an’ he was a good guy, but when he got me fixed up an’ boy was I mad
as a red hen!
BB: Yeah.
MM: I told him that you have to pay for the hospital bill. I told him I says, “ You got me
this way now see if you can get [ me] out of it!” He says, “ I will. I’m sorry.” I says, “ I
bet I either have a boy or girl.”
BB: Grandma, can you describe him to me? Can you remember?
MM: He’s not very tall.
BB: Was he taller than you?
MM: No, I was taller than he was.
BB: By very much?
MM: He was not very much, he just came to my shoulders.
BB: Oh, he came up to your shoulders?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Oh.
MM: But he was good lookin’, he do anything to satisfy my dad an’ got me just about
anything I wanted.
BB: Really? Did he have dark hair?
MM: Yes.
BB: Is it black? Yes?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Did he have dark eyes? Brown?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Oh.
MM: An’ I says to Bessie that’s Francis Schaffner, I says that’s your dad, an’ I told her
an’ she says we all make mistakes.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Anyways, well anyway turned out to be a pretty good daughter after all.
BB: Yeah, she’s a pretty neat lady!
MM: But that’s how I got her.
BB: Oh. Was Francis an Indian, do you know or was he…?
MM: Well, I don’t think he could [ have] been a Indian or anything like that. He wore
Indian clothing ‘ cause he said he was in the army once, an’ he wore army outfit, an’ he’s
still got on the outfit when he took his picture, on his picture. Now if I can think where
that is, I just seen it the other day. I thought well, I don’t know whether it’s in that trunk
there or in one [ of] the jars. I just seen it this, oh a week ago.
BB: We’ll have to look for it, it Grandma.
MM: By golly, I just can’t think where it is now, but if it aren’t in there, I don’t know
where it is.
BB: Ha, well Grandma when he left.
MM: Yep, yep, I’ll find it, I’ll write to ya and send it to ya.
BB: Okay.
MM: An’ you can figure it out yourself.
BB: Okay.
MM: But, I’ll find that, darn, it was just last week when I showed it to Mrs. Jenson an’
she was tellin’ me, an’ I says that’s Bessie’s dad. I was tellin’ her about it, about before I
got married ( Unintelligible).
BB: Yeah.
MM: The different, they all around here knows I figured I was married to Joe. Well, I
was married to Joe, they think that Joe Bessie’s, was Joe’s dad.
BB: Oh.
MM: So I just said what the eyes don’t see the heart don’t breath. But a…
BB: Do you ever have any letter from him, from Francis or anything?
MM: Oh yes. I’ve had letters from his mother an’ I’ve had letters from him saying I love
you an’ everything. There’s a guy in, in, in Texas that wanted me very, very bad. That’s
when we got married, me and Joe got married, he was here once.
BB: Yeah.
MM: An’ I was up to a, I believe I [ was] at Bessie’s that one year.
BB: Ha.
MM: An’ I was here, an’ Joe said this guy from Texas he was here to see me, I use to
chase around with Margaret an’ I, we always did like her, an’ ever since he seen me I
don’t know where I even got acquainted with him or anything, but I don’t remember
going with him. But this guy from Texas, I might have met him somewhere in Logan an’
said hi, hi, hi, an’ maybe seen him a time or two an’ a, I don’t remember an’ I can’t place
him, but he keeps writing to me.
BB: He does. What’s his name?
MM: I believe I got his letter in here somewhere, oh what’s his name, Martin, an’ he
keeps a saying I love you darling, I love you darling. I thought by golly how many times
has you say that to me an’ every time I go to get something I run across that letter.
BB: Ha.
MM: I’ve been gonna write to him in, in a ( Inaudible) a…
BB: He does.
MM: But I didn’t know I haven’t heard from him a month, he might [ have] died.
BB: Yeah.
MM: But everything I look in here his letter by golly that’s showed up I know it’s in
here, but if it ain’t in here it’s in my other purse. But I’ve been going ta write an’ tell him
I’m married an’ my husband died an’ I bet ya two ta one he’d be right here.
BB: Ya could be.
MM: He’s a good guy, he don’t smoke, he don’t drink, he says I’ll get ya anything you
wanted. I take ya up to your daughter’s place, we’ll see her, we’ll take her around
( inaudible).
BB: Sounds like a nice guy Grandma. Hey Grandma, was Francis a member of the
church?
MM: Yes he was, his mother was a member of the Church.
BB: Ha.
MM: I met his mother.
BB: You did?
MM: Yeah, he’s got a nice mother, but she lives in, in Buffalo New York.
BB: Ha.
MM: But he went back there ‘ cause her mother died.
BB: Oh. Is his, is Francis’ mom is she white.
MM: I don’t know if Francis is still alive. Last time I went to [ Buffalo] they was living
up there.
BB: Where’s that?
MM: Oh, above Yakima Washington somewhere up there. I went up there an’ I seen him
up there an’ he, a woman up there.
BB: An’ that was the last time you seen him?
MM: That’s the last time I seen him.
BB: Ha.
MM: Wish the heck he would come around sometime.
BB: Yeah.
MM: How do you spell…?
BB: I’d.
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Oh.
MM: Am, I miss this guy quite a bit… So.
BB: That’s okay.
MM: It’s, what’s he did a, it’s in Id…
BB: Yeah.
MM: It’s before you get to Yakima Washington.
BB: Oh.
MM: It’s out in the desert somewhere; he liked to live on the desert anyway. Oh this is
his letter, Texas ( unintelligible) where is it where do ya begin? ( Unintelligible) don’t you
think.
BB: Ya kinda does ( unintelligible).
MM: He’s dressed in his uniform, he worked in the army, he was a good guy.
BB: He’s good lookin’ Grandma.
MM: Ah- hah. He’s got Bessie’s eyes. He come close to it.
BB: Whoops.
MM: I think he does if he ever shows up ( unintelligible) he’s got a daughter named
Bessie, he got me that way. He must a ran away, he just didn’t want to pay for it that’s
about it. Made me mad when I found out I was pregnant myself. But I got by an’ ah
mother was so mad! [ We] ought to make him marry her. Yeah he told me he was gonna
marry me. Well, he shouldn’t a got you that way ‘ til he was married. I says, that’s what I
told him. An’ I was young. ( Unintelligible) But that’s your daddy. Francis his name, I
said that’s ( unintelligible) Bessie ought to know.
BB: Hi.
MM: Yeah. But he’s a good guy.
BB: Yeah, looks like he’s a nice fellow.
MM: But I never see him anymore, I guess he thinks I’m dead. I wrote his mother two or
three times an’ I maybe I, I think she died, she pretty old herself.
BB: His mom, you think she died?
MM: Ah- hah, Francis’ mother is dead. He never talks about her, never seen him since a
year ( unintelligible) I thought I seen him in Logan, oh that’s a long time ago.
BB: Yeah.
MM: That was two or three years ago, I thought by golly that’s Francis Schaffner. I
looked an’ looked an’ looked. It sort of looked like him, never did get close to him
( unintelligible) I got Francis, gave me that picture once. This here is a picture of me… He
said he had two or three of ‘ em, he was working in the army at the time.
BB: What’s his real name? It’s not Texas Francis Schaffner.
MM: It’s Frank.
BB: France.
MM: Frank, Frank Schaffner.
BB: Frank?
MM: Ah- hah, when he went to Texas he was called Tex, name not Texas.
BB: It’s Frank not Francis?
MM: Ah- hah Francis.
BB: Francis?
MM: Francis Tex, his name is Francis, Frank Schaffner. When he went to Texas he got
[ to] meet with the Texas in people, an’ these in Texas that’s a town in itself.
BB: Yep.
MM: Texas ( unintelligible). Well, let me dig it out.
BB: Yeah, ha.
MM: And.
< Interruption>
BB: Well it’s on.
MM: It’s so long ago too. ( Singing song) “ I love thee dear hearts an’ general people. Is
my, my hometown because these dear hearts and general people. They never, they never
ever let’s ya down. They read their good books from Friday ‘ til Monday.” I can’t sing.
BB: Sure you can, it sounds good!
MM: “ An’ ‘ til Monday, that’s how the weekend goes. I got a dream home I’ll build there
one day with a pocket fence, picket fence home… Picket fence,” oh I can’t remember.
“ Where it’s at Rainbow Roses ( unintelligible). “ I feel so welcome each day time I return
that my happy hearts keep slapping like a crown. I love thee dear heart an’ general
people who live an’ loved in my hometown.”
BB: That’s good…
MM: I lost it. Here it is, an’ see here. ( Singing) “ Darling I [ am] growing old, silver
threads among the gold. Shine unto my beau today, beau today, life is fading fast away.
But my darling you will be, will be always young an’ fair to me. Yes darling you will be.
Oh, always young and’ fair to me. Darling I am growing old, growing old, silver threads
among the gold. She upon my brow today. Life is fading fast away.”
“ When your hair is silver white an’ your cheeks an’ your, an’ your cheeks no
longer bright.”
BB: Sounds good.
MM: ( Singing) “ Bet that will soun’ on the thing. With the roses of the day may I will
kiss your lips and say oh my darling with my darling alone alone you have never bro, you
have never older grown, you my darling, mine alone. You have never older grown I
don’t like that causes very good.”
BB: Sounded good.
MM: But it’ll do. Sounds, sounds okay to me.
BB: Ah- hah.
MM: An’ this one is…“ Little Annie Rockie,” an’ its…“ Thou great are Thou” an’ “ How
Great Art Thou” ( unintelligible).
BB: Go ahead an’ sing it.
MM: Don’t want to sing it no more. ( Singing) “ After the Ball ( unintelligible), after the
ball is over, after the break of morn, after the dance is leaving after the stares are gone
many a hearts are, is aching, wish you could meet them all. May the home that have a
vanished after the ball.”
“ Little Annie Lou Lourney, she’s my sweet heart in her beauty. She’s my Andy,
I’m her June. Soon we’ll be ma, soon we’ll marry never to part. Little Annie Roonie is
my sweet heart.”
BB: “ Soul to Keep.”
MM: Ha.
BB: “ Soul to Keep.”
MM: Yes, my soul to keep let’s see. That’s then.
BB: Yeah, that you, the one mom use to sing here all the time night an’, an’ day
remember? “ My Soul to Keep,” she said she say it for a prayer.
MM: Oh Yeah, “ I lay me down to sleep I pray my, the Lord, I pray the Lord my soul to
take if I should die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
BB: An’ then there’s Humpty Dumpty.
MM: To there “ Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, all the
king’s horses an’ all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.”
BB: An’ then was.
MM: I believe that’s all there was to it.
BB: That’s pretty good Grandma.
MM: How about “ Oh Darling” the one that Hanse use ta sing all the time. “ Oh my, oh
darling how’s that, I oh my darling, I love you. Oh my darling I love you. Oh my Darling
I love you.” Then, then he’d sing another song, playing parts he’d sing la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la. Don’t believe I know that song very well.
BB: “ Oh My darling?”
MM: I believe that’s what he was trying to say, but he just hummed it.
BB: Oh. How about one, a pumpkin eater?
MM: Ha.
BB: Pumpkin eater.
MM: “ Pumpkin eater had a wife an’ couldn’t keep her, put her in a nut shell another he
kept her very very well.” That’s all I know of it.
BB: Okay.
MM: “ Show me the way to go home, I’m tired an’ I want ta go to bed. I had a little drink
about an hour ago an’ it went right to my head where I near Rome or land or sea an’ foe.
Although I’m tired an’ I want to go to bed show me the way to home.”
BB: Okay.
MM: “ I only want a body not a sweet heart. Body makes you thousands are broken,
broken hearted made I to… I only want a body not a sweet heart.”
BB: My Grandma Rose Stuart wrote this and she wanted it read at her funeral an’ my
brother Lonnie read this. “ After I’m gone. I know that some day I’ll pass on as all must
leave this earth. An’ when I do this I ask, Don’t be about my worth for after death
friends always say things that which aren’t quite true. So when I’m gone my relatives an’
friends I beg of you when I pass beyond your reach though you no longer see my faults
they’ll still be there for there’s still part of me.
“ If you like me as a saint please just be honest an’ don’t say what I was what I
ain’t, don’t pass pend their words when I leave this mortal shore, and mosey along the
earth no more. Don’t weep. Don’t she. Don’t sob. I beg of you. You will find it hard to
pay, don’t mope around an’ seem all blue, I might be better off than you. Don’t tell folks
I was a saint or anything I ain’t. If you have jam like that to spread, just hand it out
before I’m dead. If you like roses excuse me, if you have roses bless your souls just pin
one in my button hole while I’m alive an’ well today, don’t wait ‘ til I’m gone away out
on the other side.
By Rose Stuart.
“ If you have rose, roses, bless your souls, first pin one in my button hole while I’m alive
an’ well today don’t wait ‘ til I’m gone away on the other side.”
By Rose Stuart
BB: It’s on, just say whatever’s in your heart.
MM: Well, I hope I get better soon. ( Unintelligible) I did have to do that.
BB: That’s okay.
MM: I hope an’ pray to God that I, I get better soon with my legs an’ friends an’ relatives
has helped me quite a lot along especially Brenda, Bessie, an’ I think a lot often I know
the, the Lord will help me if I just ask in faith, works in an’ I can walk again. An’ do the
things ( unintelligible) are right. How along I hope an’ pray to God that all of us will feel
better when spring comes at least I hope so, an’ this doctor will help me to walk. By
golly, I will be thankful an’ I know everything will, ought to, should come out for my
sake so I can get out an’ move around an’ do the things I want to do, an’ I ask them to
bless all the friends an’ relatives an’ the bishop an’ his councilors an’ everybody that
loves me. ‘ Specially the senior citizens here waited on me hand and foot practically, an’
Lauren Johnson an’ very good to us. And we ask these things that to come put upon us
we do in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
BB: Amen… There you go say what you want.
MM: Well, the elders sure’s been good to me. They gave me a nice blessin’, an’ I
appreciate it an’ believe in it if it wasn’t for them comin’ [ to] give me a blessin’ then
afterwards I took a pigot up an’ felt fine. An’ these things come, been put upon me for
some purpose we ask thee to please help us an’ bless us to guide us through this life. I
pray we can all have faith ( unintelligible) there the day having, going to an’ I’ll be
blessed by him, this ask thee to be with us at all times. Guide us all, all times I ask
Heavenly Father to bless Hanse Miller that he may have the spirit of the Lord wherever
he may go to guide him through the things he should do an’ listen to his sister- in- law as
much as he can. An’ Heavenly Father help him an’ bless him, I ask it in the name of
Jesus Christ, Amen.
An’ Brenda been very good to me. Since she been here I don’t know what I’d
done without her. You’ve an’ been a dear soul to me all the times, an’ I hope an’ pray
she’ll write an’ I’ll do the same if I possibly can. Sure gonna, sure miss her. Blanch
Barner she [ is] another good friend of mine. I hope an’ pray she [ will] have faith in God,
we’ll bless her in everyway save she calls me an’ asks me how I am an’ everything
together we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen…
BB: Tape trouble. Have you sang your song on there?
MM: No, Yeah, oh yeah.
BB: Did you sing it.
MM: No, I just said it I, even my testimony.
BB: What’s this? My hands are all wet Grandma.
MM: Oh well, why did you want me to sing it or say it.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Well, I did say it, but I didn’t know how to start it out.
BB: You didn’t.
MM: Aw.
BB: Well go ahead, an’ I’m to finish washing the dishes.
MM: Well, I don’t sing it, it’s a testimony.
BB: Oh that’s good.
MM: You turn it on, an’ it’ll tell ya.
BB: It’s still going Grandma, you can still talk, yeah okay. That’s the one that stops it
right there so you can just talk all you want.
MM: An’ yeah.
BB: Okay.
MM: Yeah I’ve, I’ve said a good many things on there.
BB: Ha.
MM: I’ve said a good many things on there.
BB: Good.
MM: Yeah, I thought about something so, I wrote all over it, all over it.
BB: You did.
MM: Yeah.
BB: Well, let me see what’s you got, got your, my hands are pretty dry.
MM: Are they dry?
BB: Yeah, they are pretty dry now.
MM: I said don’t say no, an’ I’ll never miss it.
BB: Grandma, I don’t need this.
MM: You don’t take it I’ll be mad!
BB: Well I’m fine. Why don’t you keep it Grandma.
MM: No, no, no, no, no, no. I got plenty, don’t worry ‘ bout me.
BB: Are you sure Grandma.
MM: Yes, I got plenty I’ll never miss it.
BB: Are you sure?
MM: Yes, I’m sure I want you to have it ‘ cause you’ve been so dear to me, so dear.
BB: Oh, you don’t have to do this.
MM: I know. But I want, I saved it and saved it, I save it for you.
BB: You did?
MM: Yeah.
BB: Well Grandma, next time I come down I’ll, we can go into town if my car works an’
we can go shopping or something.
MM: Well, when the time comes, I love ya.
BB: I love you Grandma. You are a super neat Grandma.
MM: Well, I’m glad you said that, I’d like to have Lonnie’s address I’ve been, I can’t
find it, no where.
BB: You can’t? Well I’ll write down their address for you, okay.
MM: Yeah, I like to write to Dee.
BB: Okay.
MM: Dee and Lonnie. I thought I had it wrote down, but I can’t find it.
BB: Okay Grandma I’ll go write it down for you.
MM: In now you got, you wrote your name down on that tablet I saved that.
BB: Okay, well I’ll write all the names down an’ put ‘ em on the tablet deal okay, on that
board. Remember the board?
MM: Yeah, ah- hah.
BB: Okay. I’ll [ have them] written all down and put ‘ em on there for ya.
MM: Everybody thought that was a nice little and did she make that? I says some of it.
BB: Yeah okay, thank you Grandma. You sure are special.
MM: Oh I love ya all.
BB: Yeah, I love you too, and you too.
MM: Yeah, yeah, he’s been good to me he tries.
BB: Yeah.
MM: To be good to me an’ I’ll probably have Mrs. Johnson tomorrow morning.
BB: She’ll come in an’ work, an’ help ya.
MM: Yes, she says she ain’t going on her trip now. So she may, she’s may bring the
washing back an’ then she takes some more.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Well, I’m gonna have to tell Mrs. Johnson to bring ‘ em back.
BB: Well, here’s my girlfriends. I gotta go now Grandma. I washed almost all the dishes
for you, see ‘ em down there?
MM: Ha, maybe they can’t get in.
BB: Well, if the roads are too muddy for ‘ em to come in, I’m gonna pack up my stuff, I’ll
be back in just a minute…
MM: Well God bless ya. They’s over there, Brennie they’s over the road… They made it
on the road alright. Yeah, the roads alright I think, I don’t think they’ll get stuck… They
won’t get, they musta called from Logan. They must, they must a called from Logan.
BB: Yeah, well Grandma, I’ve gotta go now am I’ll— is it alright if I just mail ya the
addresses of Lonnie and them?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Okay then Grandma I’m gonna go now, thank you for everything.
MM: Oh golly, I’m going miss my baby doll.
BB: I’m going to miss you Grandma, I’ll write you a letter and send you everybody’s
address.
MM: You better gosh, shucks I don’t know, I hope I get better though.
BB: You will, your legs are lookin’ really good Grandma.
MM: Will you write to Bessie or call her, oh you told her.
BB: Yeah, ah- hah.
MM: Well, if I don’t, I know it costs quite a bit to go on a airplane, but still I have to save
some money to go.
BB: Well now Grandma, mom and dad will send ya the money so you can go, so you
don’t have to worry about the money okay.
MM: Oh, I don’t want to do and that.
BB: Yeah well, maybe you can buy them a sundae or something when you get back there,
and it’ll call it even.
MM: Well, they can, maybe I’ll, I, I’m gonna talk to the doctor an’ tell ‘ em I got to go
somewhere if you can’t make this leg better I’ll have to go somewhere to my daughter’s.
BB: Okay.
MM: Bet they take care of me.
BB: Okay.
MM: Have they made it down.
BB: Yep well, I gotta go now.
MM: Okay bye- bye.
BB: I love you grandma.
MM: I love you too. I, I’ll copy this off.
BB: Okay.

Crowder, Dr. David L. Oral History Project
Margaret Stewart Miller - Life
Experiences
By Margaret Stewart Miller
February 17, 1980
Box 2 Folder 15
Oral Interview conducted by Brenda Marie Bates
Transcribed by Maren Miyasaki October 2005
Brigham Young University- Idaho
MM: I was born in Blue Creek, raised in Wellsville, and in Blue Creek they had a lot of
Indians.
BB: They did?
MM: Ah- hah and mother lost me once. This was when I was about three or four and she
use to buy milk off this Indian woman.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And she feed it cow milk, for a long time she had goats she liked this kinda farm.
And I never did [ know] her name, but I wandered down to the river you know, and I
wanted to sit there and watch the waves go by.
BB: Waves?
MM: The waves.
BB: Oh yeah.
MM: And, somehow, I… this Indian woman told mother and mother told me, by golly,
one of her boys found me sleeping in the wagon box somewhere.
BB: Wagon box?
MM: Ah- hah, in the wagon box.
BB: Did they have wagons then?
MM: Oh, they had wagons and tents and everything like that. I forgot to go, to go home,
and I just stayed there.
BB: Uh- huh.
MM: And oh, I said to that little boy, mommy will be lookin’ for me and I better go, well
momma will take ya back, and I believe he never did tell her because oh, I was there for
three days.
BB: You was?
MM: In the wagon box sound asleep.
BB: For three days?
MM: Yeah, and mother she lost me. She couldn’t find me, she couldn’t find me. They
had boy scouts; they had everyone around out hunting me, trying to find me. This
woman, this Indian woman come to mother she says I brought you some milk and she,
she says kinda not very sociable, “ Boy I’ve got some bad news to tell ya, I lost my little
girl.” “ Well, there is a little girl out at my place maybe its your child and my boy found
her.” She says, “ I wonder if it be my girl.” She says, “ Well you come to my place and if
it’s your child I couldn’t get nothing out of her, out [ of] me, me, ya know.”
BB: Yeah.
MM: I said we got to go home, and she asked if her, has any Indian, in that woman asked
me she says, “ Oh I’ll take you home in a few hours. But I’ll take this to your mother,”
and she, I wouldn’t go with her. I come by myself and I’m going on myself.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And so she told her you come find her and mother went, she told dad and they
rushed over there, in the buggie they had a bad buggie about as a bad as a horse yeah
( inaudible) went over there by golly that’s our child, they call her Margaret, I got up and
looked, yes me, “ I’m glad to see ya mama.” “ Where might the devil did you go?” I says,
“ I went down to the river.” Boy says we found her down by the river. I didn’t know who
[ she] was. She wandered in the wagon box where we always keep our tools, and she was
sound asleep. She was so tired, and she was gonna walk home and in a little while and
mother was worried time, to death. But sure kept a watch on me afterwards.
BB: She did?
MM: That’s the last time I knew that this Indian woman, she was by golly, mother says,
“ I’ll pay you.” “ Oh, I don’t want anything for ya, I didn’t know who she was. I was
gonna call the cops [ to] see if they lost anybody if the police force, and they had the boy
scouts out after me, and I didn’t know anything about it. I was little you, you know.
BB: How old was you Grandma?
MM: I was about three or four years old.
BB: Oh, you were little.
MM: And I remember going to the river, but I don’t remember going to this Indian’s
place, if only I’d slept in the wagon box.
We lived in Blue Creek [ a] long, long time. I don’t remember how many years
and then, then mother and dad moved to Wellsville. They finished raising me there, and
then we stayed there mother and dad, and to go from Wellsville and ( inaudible) to get our
groceries she always took me after that “ I’m gonna cling onto Margaret, I’m not going to
lose her every time.”
BB: In Blue Creek where they lost you at?
MM: Yeah, Blue Creek.
BB: Where’s Blue Creek at?
MM: Blue Creek is way over the mountains way past Tremont all the way past Tremont.
It’s a big, it’s got a lot of land. They only have one or two houses is all where this Indian
woman lived in Blue Creek. An’ they said they were going to Utah so they could be
among the Mormons. An’ I don’t know whether they got there or not. But I never seen
them after that, I don’t know what becomed of her. But mother remembered [ the Indian
woman] though, buyed milk and stuff from her an’ then she was awfully good to her.
BB: Sounds like she was a nice lady.
MM: She was a nice lady, but she had children of her own and nobody claims her I’m
gonna. But I don’t know how or where I’d land to.
BB: Did you go to grade school Grandma?
MM: Yeah, I went to grade school.
BB: Where at?
MM: I went to Wellsville that was when I lived in Wellsville for quite a while. George
had a sister named Beenlee.
BB: Beenlee?
MM: Beenlee, and she lived in Wellsville.
BB: Who is this girl, who’s Beenlee?
MM: Well, my dad’s sister.
BB: Your dad’s sister?
MM: My dad’s sister- in- law.
BB: Sister- in- law?
MM: And we lived in part of her place ‘ til mother and dad got us a place in Wellsville,
and we got a place there and lived for quite a while. An’ then, an’ then we moved from
Clifton Wellsville to River Heights.
BB: River Heights?
MM: ( Inaudible) That’s where I went to grade school is River Heights.
BB: Oh, River Heights Grade School.
MM: Oh, and I was, took me to grade school when I was six years old.
BB: When you were six years old?
MM: Yeah.
BB: Oh.
MM: And I went there in River Heights School, of course its in Wards now.
BB: It’s in Wards?
MM: Uh- hah, it’s different like first, second, and third. But it’s one big ward.
BB: Yeah.
MM: It’s, we lived on a place there an’ my father starts ( inaudible) well daddy wanted to
build onto it. It was just two dinky rooms to build onto it, and when dad was young, he
had a, there’s a shack down by the cemetery.
BB: One over here?
MM: Dad and the men move that shack down and made another room of it. An’ they,
they met Rennes use to work on it. But we lived there on the hill for a while ‘ til they got
the place fixed on the other, on there in River Heights. Good place there so we lived
there for awhile and we use to go around the mountains and pick flowers and things like
that.
BB: You did? You like flowers?
MM: Sun Flowers, Sun Flowers.
BB: Sun Flowers.
MM: There pretty flowers and we use to, what do you call ‘ em, Figalillies.
BB: They’re what?
MM: Figalilles.
BB: Figalillies?
MM: You remember them look like with Figalillies, with your orange flowers with the
( inaudible) in the middle.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Well, we picked some of them, we’d take them home, and put them in the vase, and
then, then we played in the mud. We made mud pies and everything we stayed out on the
lawn and made mud pies, and we enjoyed it. And mother says by golly, I had better take
a picture of Margaret and Rennes there out there a playing in the, making pies and make
dishes, cup, and things like that. I never did get to see that picture afterward, don’t know
where it went to.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I would of liked to had it.
BB: Yeah.
MM: We got to keep praying about ourselves and everybody around us and passin’ by
( inaudible) on the streets side we got some children. Two girls’ mother had a boy once,
but it was born dead.
BB: It was?
MM: She had a miscarriage.
BB: Oh.
MM: Just us girls. It was sad about the baby ( inaudible).
BB: So Rennes was two and you were five or six?
MM: I might have been older than that ‘ cause I was running around like a chicken with
its head off. We lived in that house down there.
BB: So how many years did you go to school there?
MM: Four years.
BB: Four years?
MM: Or five years.
BB: Four or five?
MM: I went five years steady every year ‘ cause one year anybody who went to school for
a year at the end of the year you got a prize. I went every morning to school.’
BB: You did?
MM: And I never even caught a cold that I remember.
BB: Boy.
MM: I was healthy too. But in that same year, in the year ( in audible).
BB: You got a doll?
MM: A doll.
BB: You still have it?
MM: No, I don’t know what happened to it. At the end of that year, they gave me a doll
for a prize. That’s what I got paid at school.
BB: That’s pretty neat.
MM: They had ones that you squeeze and cries and weens and eyes batt. Another girl, a
boyfriend, oh boy we had fun!
BB: You had a boyfriend?
MM: Yeah, I had a boyfriend. I don’t know who he was.
BB: You can’t remember his name.
MM: I can’t remember his name; he was about two years older than I was.
BB: He was?
MM: But, we went together in school. He called me and I called to him, and he said
when I got older or a certain age I’m gonna marry you Margaret. What? What’s
marriage? I didn’t know what, what’s marriage? I didn’t know what marriage was then.
BB: How old was you?
MM: Oh, I guess I was seven or eight years old.
BB: Wow.
MM: An’ I says, I say it’s a long, long ways, I don’t even know what marriage is, do
you? Well, momma and daddy got married why can’t we get [ married]? I says, “ We
can’t get married now. We don’t even know [ what] marriage life is.” I didn’t then.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And then he says, “ How was we born?” I says, “ I don’t know, ask your mother and
dad how was I born?” ( Inaudible)
BB: Go ahead.
MM: And oh, I hated to explain this… But we moved there, dad wanted to live closer to
the, to the temple.
BB: He did?
MM: And then I don’t know, I guess I was about 18 or 19 years old or somewhere in
there.
BB: 18 or 19.
MM: Yeah then.
BB: That’s when you moved over there by the Logan Temple?
MM: That’s when we moved over there to Third East.
BB: Third East?
MM: Let’s see, at Bishop Benson’s place.
BB: You lived in the same place he lived at?
MM: That’s a block, the Fifth Ward meeting house back east. Three or four churches we
lived where, quite a while in the back of Bishop Benson’s old place me and mother didn’t
like it there and dad didn’t like it there.
BB: They didn’t? How old, how old were [ you] now, 17 or 18?
MM: I believe I was about 18. I, I don’t know exactly how old I was, but I was old
enough to… I went to school too.
BB: Where did you go to school at?
MM: At the Junior High.
BB: Junior High?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Where do you go to Junior High at? Here?
MM: Right here in Logan.
BB: Right here in Logan? Oh.
MM: Right here in Logan I went to school for a long while, maybe two or three years. I
didn’t get to senior high ‘ cause dad didn’t have enough money to put me there.
BB: So you didn’t go to high school?
MM: I didn’t. I didn’t go any further than the Junior High School.
BB: So you just went… Did you go to the ninth grade in junior high?
MM: Yeah.
BB: You did?
MM: Yeah, I believe the ninth grade.
BB: Ya did. You didn’t get to go to school anymore?
MM: I didn’t get to go to school after that. I worked out an’ took care of the kids.
BB: Ya did?
MM: And did house work and things like that.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I wished I coulda gone to senior high, but I thought by golly if I made enough
money I’d start [ to go] to the senior high, but I ( inaudible) to go. You had to pay for the
books and your cards and everything.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I had a girl friend that went there, but I didn’t have the money to go.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Dad have the money to send me, that’s things we had to work out. ‘ Cause we went
to church there, ta [ to] eleventh ward church there. Oh it was down in, in the basement
still where dad he got so ill that’s where he died.
BB: Where’s this at?
MM: It was down on Third East North.
BB: Is that the house you…?
MM: Way down there by the railroad tracks. What do you call it? Third South, that’s
what it is. Third South.
BB: That’s where he died?
MM: That’s where dad died.
BB: How did he die, Grandma?
MM: Well, he died with a stroke.
BB: Stroke?
MM: Dad had three strokes. Oh, I was about 20 or 21 when dad died.
BB: You were 21 then, about 21?
MM: About 20, about 21 when dad, dad died.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Rennes was living in Logan, she was married.
BB: She was married?
MM: Yeah, she was married.
BB: When did she get married?
MM: Oh, she got married in Logan November.
BB: November? Do you remember what year?
MM: Oh, I don’t know, let’s see when. She was born November 8th, oh January 8th,
January 8th, she was born January 8th, and then after I was out a year she got married
before Thanksgiving. ‘ Cause we had a big dinner on that Thanksgiving that day.
BB: Yeah.
MM: She was married then. Me and mother use to sit up takin’ care of dad. She’d sleep
one night and I’d sleep one night. She’d stay up and take care of him, but he got bed- fast
and dad was 71 or 81 years old when he died, he died 19… What was that, I got in the
book.
BB: Okay, that’s okay Grandma.
MM: I can’t, I know it’s 8… 19… Something.
BB: Yeah. Hey, Grandma when did you start sewing? You’re always crocheting and
everything.
MM: Took it in school.
BB: Took it in school, did you start out in grade school?
MM: I started out in grade school and when I worked at it, I started to cooking; mother
showed me how to cook.
BB: She did?
MM: A time or two and then I worked at it, worked and worked at cookin’. Worked a
good many places in Logan, I worked for a Doctor Windle Budge.
BB: That’s who you worked for?
MM: And I worked for a medical doctor oh since, I know the doctor, but I can’t think of
his name.
BB: Yeah.
MM: She had three little boys.
BB: Well, you sure did a lot of sewing.
MM: A lot of sewing between times.
BB: Yeah.
MM: A lot of fancy work and I did crochet work and I called her and I got a, I got, went
uptown and got patterns. My girlfriend use ta [ to], showed me how to do it.
BB: They did?
MM: Fancy work because, oh she never get onto that, that oh you, you will in time
Margaret.
BB: So is that all that [ you] did, you have any other hobbies that you liked to do?
MM: Oh, I liked to draw.
BB: You liked to draw?
MM: Yeah.
BB: So you have any of your drawings?
MM: Paintings.
BB: Or your paintings?
MM: Oh, I lost it all after I don’t know where it all went to, but—
BB: Yeah.
MM: If I ever find ‘ em, they must be somewhere around here. Ever find ‘ em when I get
better.
BB: Well Grandma.
MM: And if I ever find anything this side of painting.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Well that picture you give, give me, everybody thought that was sure nice I told
‘ em you done it.
BB: That’s nice.
MM: It sure [ is] pretty, I laid it down on, then I was afraid it would get knocked down
and get broke.
BB: Yeah. What else did you like to do besides drawing and painting?
MM: Oh, I liked to go dancing.
BB: You like to go dancing?
MM: I use to go to a lot of dances.
BB: A lot of ‘ em huh?
MM: And they have the Poladore in Logan I use to go with.
BB: The what?
MM: The Poladore.
BB: What’s that?
MM: It’s a dance ball.
BB: Oh.
MM: And [ I] use to go there with Blanche, Mrs. Ointments daughter.
BB: Yeah.
MM: The one that died, I use to go with her. We’d go together whenever we’d go out
there to the dances. I says, I can’t dance, oh you can too. If I can dance you can dance,
well she never sat a dance.
BB: She did.
MM: Some often danced with boyfriends I din’t. I din’t know them very good, they
started drinking. I says ah- hah I’m never going dancing again, tell her. ‘ Cause.
BB: Your boyfriend this the same one you had before or a different one?
MM: No, different one.
BB: Oh, do you remember [ what] his name is?
MM: Don’t know his name now.
BB: That’s alright.
MM: Ron Van Wing.
BB: He, he.
MM: But he was just a friend. I’d stop dancing ( inaudible) an’ then I danced with
another one that I was going to school with, even at church I says I’ll get him in another
dance so I didn’t go with him very much. I might be into something else I don’t want to
get into.
BB: Yeah.
MM: An’ I quit going to the dances. Then, but this Dorothy Cooper, she Blanches’ sister.
BB: Her name Dor-, Blanches’ sisters?
MM: Blanches.
BB: Dorothy Cooper.
MM: No, Dorothy Cooper. As in was ( inaudible). She got married she, she had water in
her legs, bad water, she had bad legs too.
BB: She did.
MM: She died. She, she’s been married four or five times.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And she died. That was Blanche’s sister, the one that lives in Salt Lake. She, she’s
had six boys herself, an’ two girls, is it done? ( Inaudible)
BB: Oh.
MM: That a, and dad went.
BB: When your dad went.
MM: Ah- hah, dad met George, dad came home and told me about him. George is the one
for ya ( Inaudible). An’ dad told me about him. I don’t want to marry no man! He
looked older than he was, and I went with him a time or two. An’ dad told me he was a
temple worker, well the heck he was!
BB: Your dad was?
MM: Well, he was no temple worker than the man in the moon!
BB: Your dad told you George was a temple worker, and he wasn’t, ( laugh).
MM: I told dad he, you lied to me, what have I done now? Well, George told me [ he]
wasn’t a temple worker, and you told me he was, well he was-- he’s no temple worker
anymore than the man in the moon nor me.
BB: So that’s how you met him?
MM: I met him then, then got I married to him that’s when I married him. I says, “ If I
would of known that I wouldn’t of married outside the church.” He says, “ Well I’m sorry
we’re married now!” I says, “ You should have told me or dad should have told me.” I
guess he didn’t know either.
BB: You did, you date him?
MM: Oh yeah, we’ve been going together for a month and then he never told me. I asked
him all about him, his parents, he says his died, they lived down in the old factory. I
asked him how old he was, he goes 26 or 27 years old. I got mad, 27 an’ dad says, “ he’s
a temple worker he’ll be good to ya, and everything and you got to go out with him.” [ I]
says, “ Is he married, no well I says he old enough to be my grandfather.” “ Oh he is not,”
dad says. I says, “ Just ‘ cause everybody’s [ a] temple worker I, you think I ought to
marry ‘ em, ha.” I says, “ Can’t I have my say?” “ Ya suit yourself. In we’s sits down and
read the Bible and everything to dad, and I says, “ Yes, why don’t you tell dad the truth of
it.” I told dad afterwards after he told me he wasn’t a Mormon and he and…
BB: So George wasn’t a Mormon?
MM: Well, he was Mormon, but…
BB: He was?
MM: But he didn’t believe in temple work, and I said, “ Well you went to the temple,
that’s where you’ve been.” “ Well, I went with someone else that’s where I meet your
dad.” Well I says, “ Why didn’t you keep it up? You should go to the temple,” I says.
Dad we must go to the temple, he says he use to work in the temple a lot.
BB: Your dad did?
MM: Yes dad use to.
BB: Oh.
MM: He use to go [ to] the temple and work for the dead and work for himself and for
mother and he’d, I was baptized when I was eight years old in the temple.
BB: In the temple?
MM: Inside the temple.
BB: In Logan?
MM: Uh- hum.
BB: Wow. That’s pretty neat.
MM: And Rennes was born, she was baptized in the Logan Temple. I think dad and
mother baptism was performed in Salt Lake, and uh, mother was borned in the hospital. I
don’t know how they meet one another, that was, but I guess.
BB: Yeah.
MM: But I went through the temple when Bessie was down when they was dedicating,
when they was, they fixing the temple grounds.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Everybody had to go to the temple in Ogden or Salt Lake ‘ cause they were fixing
the Logan Temple over.
BB: Yeah.
MM: And when they was going to dedicate it then I had the chance to go with one of the
members of the ward here, Sister ( inaudible) was going to take me through but, and
Bessie come down. We went, had shopping that day, and she said, “ Mother, why can’t
we.” She said, “ Don’t you want to go to the temple.” I says yes, but I says I’ve got no
recommend from the bishop. Well, you don’t need a recommend to go through it. An’
they’re dedicating the Logan Temple, everybody’s going, it was free to the public and
they was fixing ta [ to] make it real nice.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Like a palace, well we went and I says, “ Yes I’d like to go,” an’ so we went [ with]
her and me an’ Joe an’ Hanse to the temple. So Hanse did get to see the temple.
BB: Yeah.
MM: An’ why I was going through I had meeting first, we [ had] to go into a great big
room and they was tellin’ how the temple was built and how much it cost and everything.
An’ so we went in, they give ya a number to take care of ya, and you take that number to
one of the officiators. An’ ( inaudible) and a first one they give me one and everyone, and
this number we give ya if anybody ain’t able to go up them steps we have an elevator,
and they can’t walk just let us know, the lady, the stairway there and she’ll take ya on the
elevator. You know them steps I thought I could walk, I tried very, very hard to climb up
‘ em. I walk up them things and Bessie walked all the steps, and I didn’t think, well I
must of gotten tired, over tired, or something, all of a sudden Bessie looked at me, “ Are
you all right?” I says, “ Yes, I’m still trying” an’ Hanse says to Bessie, “ I don’t think
Margaret can stand to walk up these stairs,” and I heard him say that. I got so I got up on
the second stairs way an’ I fainted.
BB: My goodness.
MM: An’ I was hot too. I stayed still an’ that lady at the top of the stairs she says. “ Oh
my gosh, is this your mother?” And Bessie says, “ Yes.” “ Oh,” she says, “ She can’t walk
it we… No I can see that she can’t I’ll send the elevator man up to pick her, put her in the
elevator, take her around in that elevator.” I didn’t know anything ‘ til I come to. Bessie
was worried about me.
BB: She was?
MM: An’ so was Hanse.
BB: Yeah.
MM: An’ this man or whoever ( inaudible) goes a, Hanse or Joe went with Bessie, and
they went into a different room and Bessie stays with me, this the first time this has ever
been done like this. She says, “ I can’t stand it ( inaudible) an’ when I got up on the first
floor. Hanse come up to me and says, “ Are you alright?” Bessie says, “ Yeah, I think
she’s fine now.” She says just got over being sick an’ dizzy, she just fainted. On them
steps, I was hot and feverish. This lady she gave me an ice cold glass of water, and I
drank it up an’ I was alright.
BB: Did that happen just a few years ago?
MM: Ah- hah, it’s when the temple, it’s been just a few years you, an’ I thought, oh my
gosh I’ll never go to the temple again like that. I’ve got millions of places to go, yes you
will, you’ll get over it you’ll, you’ll go through the temple again, get a recommend from
the bishop and you’ll go through the temple.
BB: Have you gone through since then?
MM: I haven’t gone through; I haven’t got around to it.
BB: Oh, okay.
MM: I never get it done, a recommend from the bishop to go through, I was going to one
day, but something came up. I didn’t feel very good or something, and I didn’t go and
John, John came over and says, “ You, told me, I’ll get you one from the bishop.
BB: Yeah, well Grandma.
MM: I want to go through the temple with someone there’s, some names there’s. Jon and
mother and the family and grandkids and the bishop told me, oh must have been last
spring. When could [ I] go to the temple? Oh, you let me know when you want to go
through, you’ve been through? I says, “ Yes I was baptized in the Logan Temple.” “ Oh
okay.” And I bore testimony so many times in the church and I’ll, oh Margaret
( intelligible) bears testimony and tells ya how she feels of how good people are to her.
Don’t worry the people too much and do things for myself and…
BB: Well, Grandma when you met, when you married George did you find out that he
was married before?
MM: No, he never told me, tell after we were married.
BB: ‘ Til after you was married, he did and how many kids did he have?
MM: He’s got one son and one daughter.
BB: He.
MM: I never did see them.
BB: You never did see ‘ em.
MM: Never see ‘ em.
BB: ( Laugh) Do you know what there names are?
MM: All I seen was one son in Salt Lake and his name is George, Mel, Mel Wallston. I
seen him, but I never and his wife and other kids, but I never seen his second son.
BB: ( Laugh) Did you have any kids from George?
MM: Oh no.
BB: You never?
MM: I didn’t have any kids from George, he did.
BB: Then George died, he past away.
MM: Then George died, then I married Joe.
BB: Then you, well how’d you meet Joe?
MM: In Logan.
BB: In here, here in Logan?
MM: Yeah.
BB: Where did you meet him at?
MM: Oh I was, I meet him at the gym theater.
BB: My goodness.
MM: An’ well, an’ I, I seen him a time or two, but ta [ to] Marie Ander Pain got me
acquainted with Joe.
BB: He did?
MM: This man here.
BB: Yeah, I remember him.
MM: Oh. A May Cordon told me about him, told me he was lonely told me he wants a
woman. I says, “ Oh, I can’t get married, I don’t want to get married then.”
BB: You never?
MM: No, I told ‘ em I was married once an’ I don’t want to get married an’ she told Joe,
this May Cordon told Joe, “ Margaret don’t want to ya for a while to, ya for a while don’t
feel like she wants to up and marry anyone right now.
BB: Ah- hah.
MM: And he says, “ Well okay, I won’t worry her, tell [ her] she makes up her mind so I
says I don’t mind. I’ll wait for ya.”
BB: He did.
MM: And ( unintelligible) an’ I.
< Interruption>
MM: I says, “ I know a, don’t know yet.” I guess we were going with each other for
months, then we stopped going for awhile, an’ then he called me up and asked if we
wanted to go out, he’d take me out for dinner. I alright ( unintelligible) that night I said
Orerson ( unintelligible) he says okay an’ I still like him and, but Joe told me once he was
married once too. That was before we got married.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I was gonna tell ya I was married once before. He had one child come in its from
the baby and his wife and child stayed there for quite awhile an’ they couldn’t get along
with this parents, and she moved out of the house and took the baby with her.
BB: Ha.
MM: An’ the baby took sick and died an’ it’s as the first, and I never did get to the baby.
Joe was married before, he married me, but yet he told me about that before he married
me.
BB: That’s good.
MM: And I’m glad he did if he wouldn’t [ have] told me it would be a mess like George.
BB: Did you have any kids from Joe? You never?
MM: No, I had no kids from Joe.
BB: You never.
MM: Then I don’t know you remember, I don’t think you do before I met Joe I went out
with Francis Schaffner an’ I, he was gonna marry me in, about in August.
BB: Oh. Can you tell me a little bit about him Grandma?
MM: Well, Bessie knows it.
BB: Yeah.
MM: I don’t know if she ever told you or not anything about.
BB: She mentioned it to me, but I don’t know anything.
MM: Well, Francis Schaffner, I use to go with him when Nettie Schaffner, a friend who
use to come from Buffalo, New York, and I got acquainted with Francis before I even
met Joe.
BB: Oh. How did you meet Francis?
MM: Francis he’s a good kid, he’s good lookin’ but he is younger than any [ of] my
husbands.
BB: Oh.
MM: He was, oh he took me out to dinner, parties, dancing, an’ all things like that. We
got tangled up with each other. Ya know.
BB: He didn’t marry ya, he…
MM: He got me a family now, an’ I blamed it onto him an’ he denied it. I got a picture
of him.
BB: You do?
MM: Yeah somewhere around here, I just had it the other day.
BB: Can you show it to me later?
MM: But he was a good guy. He never smoked, he never drank, an’ he took a likin’ to
me an’ he says maybe I’ll marry ya afterwards, but he never did, an’ he went off with
another woman an’ I never did see him again or her.
BB: Huh.
MM: He said he’d write to me, an’ he said he had a job, an’ he was going to Buffalo New
York to see his mother.
BB: That’s where he is?
MM: An’ I guess that’s where he is, I don’t know if he got tangled up with another
woman or what, but I never did see him. But I knew him when ever he goes to Logan.
BB: Really?
MM: An’ I told ya I heard, I said ( Inaudible) Francis now I says by golly you get me this
way I’ll beat the head off you ( inaudible). I was yours then, an’ I just didn’t know the
difference I was just about, just about like Lorna.
BB: Oh.
MM: An’ I was a little older than Lorna, I should have had more sense.
BB: Things happen.
MM: But things happen so quick an’ he said he’d marry me. That’s afterwards when
he’s get a stay with job, he had a job in Logan he wouldn’t…
BB: What did he do?
MM: He was working on ditches for the commissioner an’ oh, what do you call it Utah
Power and Light Company that’s what it is. Jon used to work on the Telephone
Company.
BB: Oh.
MM: All the time an’ he was a good guy, but when he got me fixed up an’ boy was I mad
as a red hen!
BB: Yeah.
MM: I told him that you have to pay for the hospital bill. I told him I says, “ You got me
this way now see if you can get [ me] out of it!” He says, “ I will. I’m sorry.” I says, “ I
bet I either have a boy or girl.”
BB: Grandma, can you describe him to me? Can you remember?
MM: He’s not very tall.
BB: Was he taller than you?
MM: No, I was taller than he was.
BB: By very much?
MM: He was not very much, he just came to my shoulders.
BB: Oh, he came up to your shoulders?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Oh.
MM: But he was good lookin’, he do anything to satisfy my dad an’ got me just about
anything I wanted.
BB: Really? Did he have dark hair?
MM: Yes.
BB: Is it black? Yes?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Did he have dark eyes? Brown?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Oh.
MM: An’ I says to Bessie that’s Francis Schaffner, I says that’s your dad, an’ I told her
an’ she says we all make mistakes.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Anyways, well anyway turned out to be a pretty good daughter after all.
BB: Yeah, she’s a pretty neat lady!
MM: But that’s how I got her.
BB: Oh. Was Francis an Indian, do you know or was he…?
MM: Well, I don’t think he could [ have] been a Indian or anything like that. He wore
Indian clothing ‘ cause he said he was in the army once, an’ he wore army outfit, an’ he’s
still got on the outfit when he took his picture, on his picture. Now if I can think where
that is, I just seen it the other day. I thought well, I don’t know whether it’s in that trunk
there or in one [ of] the jars. I just seen it this, oh a week ago.
BB: We’ll have to look for it, it Grandma.
MM: By golly, I just can’t think where it is now, but if it aren’t in there, I don’t know
where it is.
BB: Ha, well Grandma when he left.
MM: Yep, yep, I’ll find it, I’ll write to ya and send it to ya.
BB: Okay.
MM: An’ you can figure it out yourself.
BB: Okay.
MM: But, I’ll find that, darn, it was just last week when I showed it to Mrs. Jenson an’
she was tellin’ me, an’ I says that’s Bessie’s dad. I was tellin’ her about it, about before I
got married ( Unintelligible).
BB: Yeah.
MM: The different, they all around here knows I figured I was married to Joe. Well, I
was married to Joe, they think that Joe Bessie’s, was Joe’s dad.
BB: Oh.
MM: So I just said what the eyes don’t see the heart don’t breath. But a…
BB: Do you ever have any letter from him, from Francis or anything?
MM: Oh yes. I’ve had letters from his mother an’ I’ve had letters from him saying I love
you an’ everything. There’s a guy in, in, in Texas that wanted me very, very bad. That’s
when we got married, me and Joe got married, he was here once.
BB: Yeah.
MM: An’ I was up to a, I believe I [ was] at Bessie’s that one year.
BB: Ha.
MM: An’ I was here, an’ Joe said this guy from Texas he was here to see me, I use to
chase around with Margaret an’ I, we always did like her, an’ ever since he seen me I
don’t know where I even got acquainted with him or anything, but I don’t remember
going with him. But this guy from Texas, I might have met him somewhere in Logan an’
said hi, hi, hi, an’ maybe seen him a time or two an’ a, I don’t remember an’ I can’t place
him, but he keeps writing to me.
BB: He does. What’s his name?
MM: I believe I got his letter in here somewhere, oh what’s his name, Martin, an’ he
keeps a saying I love you darling, I love you darling. I thought by golly how many times
has you say that to me an’ every time I go to get something I run across that letter.
BB: Ha.
MM: I’ve been gonna write to him in, in a ( Inaudible) a…
BB: He does.
MM: But I didn’t know I haven’t heard from him a month, he might [ have] died.
BB: Yeah.
MM: But everything I look in here his letter by golly that’s showed up I know it’s in
here, but if it ain’t in here it’s in my other purse. But I’ve been going ta write an’ tell him
I’m married an’ my husband died an’ I bet ya two ta one he’d be right here.
BB: Ya could be.
MM: He’s a good guy, he don’t smoke, he don’t drink, he says I’ll get ya anything you
wanted. I take ya up to your daughter’s place, we’ll see her, we’ll take her around
( inaudible).
BB: Sounds like a nice guy Grandma. Hey Grandma, was Francis a member of the
church?
MM: Yes he was, his mother was a member of the Church.
BB: Ha.
MM: I met his mother.
BB: You did?
MM: Yeah, he’s got a nice mother, but she lives in, in Buffalo New York.
BB: Ha.
MM: But he went back there ‘ cause her mother died.
BB: Oh. Is his, is Francis’ mom is she white.
MM: I don’t know if Francis is still alive. Last time I went to [ Buffalo] they was living
up there.
BB: Where’s that?
MM: Oh, above Yakima Washington somewhere up there. I went up there an’ I seen him
up there an’ he, a woman up there.
BB: An’ that was the last time you seen him?
MM: That’s the last time I seen him.
BB: Ha.
MM: Wish the heck he would come around sometime.
BB: Yeah.
MM: How do you spell…?
BB: I’d.
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Oh.
MM: Am, I miss this guy quite a bit… So.
BB: That’s okay.
MM: It’s, what’s he did a, it’s in Id…
BB: Yeah.
MM: It’s before you get to Yakima Washington.
BB: Oh.
MM: It’s out in the desert somewhere; he liked to live on the desert anyway. Oh this is
his letter, Texas ( unintelligible) where is it where do ya begin? ( Unintelligible) don’t you
think.
BB: Ya kinda does ( unintelligible).
MM: He’s dressed in his uniform, he worked in the army, he was a good guy.
BB: He’s good lookin’ Grandma.
MM: Ah- hah. He’s got Bessie’s eyes. He come close to it.
BB: Whoops.
MM: I think he does if he ever shows up ( unintelligible) he’s got a daughter named
Bessie, he got me that way. He must a ran away, he just didn’t want to pay for it that’s
about it. Made me mad when I found out I was pregnant myself. But I got by an’ ah
mother was so mad! [ We] ought to make him marry her. Yeah he told me he was gonna
marry me. Well, he shouldn’t a got you that way ‘ til he was married. I says, that’s what I
told him. An’ I was young. ( Unintelligible) But that’s your daddy. Francis his name, I
said that’s ( unintelligible) Bessie ought to know.
BB: Hi.
MM: Yeah. But he’s a good guy.
BB: Yeah, looks like he’s a nice fellow.
MM: But I never see him anymore, I guess he thinks I’m dead. I wrote his mother two or
three times an’ I maybe I, I think she died, she pretty old herself.
BB: His mom, you think she died?
MM: Ah- hah, Francis’ mother is dead. He never talks about her, never seen him since a
year ( unintelligible) I thought I seen him in Logan, oh that’s a long time ago.
BB: Yeah.
MM: That was two or three years ago, I thought by golly that’s Francis Schaffner. I
looked an’ looked an’ looked. It sort of looked like him, never did get close to him
( unintelligible) I got Francis, gave me that picture once. This here is a picture of me… He
said he had two or three of ‘ em, he was working in the army at the time.
BB: What’s his real name? It’s not Texas Francis Schaffner.
MM: It’s Frank.
BB: France.
MM: Frank, Frank Schaffner.
BB: Frank?
MM: Ah- hah, when he went to Texas he was called Tex, name not Texas.
BB: It’s Frank not Francis?
MM: Ah- hah Francis.
BB: Francis?
MM: Francis Tex, his name is Francis, Frank Schaffner. When he went to Texas he got
[ to] meet with the Texas in people, an’ these in Texas that’s a town in itself.
BB: Yep.
MM: Texas ( unintelligible). Well, let me dig it out.
BB: Yeah, ha.
MM: And.
< Interruption>
BB: Well it’s on.
MM: It’s so long ago too. ( Singing song) “ I love thee dear hearts an’ general people. Is
my, my hometown because these dear hearts and general people. They never, they never
ever let’s ya down. They read their good books from Friday ‘ til Monday.” I can’t sing.
BB: Sure you can, it sounds good!
MM: “ An’ ‘ til Monday, that’s how the weekend goes. I got a dream home I’ll build there
one day with a pocket fence, picket fence home… Picket fence,” oh I can’t remember.
“ Where it’s at Rainbow Roses ( unintelligible). “ I feel so welcome each day time I return
that my happy hearts keep slapping like a crown. I love thee dear heart an’ general
people who live an’ loved in my hometown.”
BB: That’s good…
MM: I lost it. Here it is, an’ see here. ( Singing) “ Darling I [ am] growing old, silver
threads among the gold. Shine unto my beau today, beau today, life is fading fast away.
But my darling you will be, will be always young an’ fair to me. Yes darling you will be.
Oh, always young and’ fair to me. Darling I am growing old, growing old, silver threads
among the gold. She upon my brow today. Life is fading fast away.”
“ When your hair is silver white an’ your cheeks an’ your, an’ your cheeks no
longer bright.”
BB: Sounds good.
MM: ( Singing) “ Bet that will soun’ on the thing. With the roses of the day may I will
kiss your lips and say oh my darling with my darling alone alone you have never bro, you
have never older grown, you my darling, mine alone. You have never older grown I
don’t like that causes very good.”
BB: Sounded good.
MM: But it’ll do. Sounds, sounds okay to me.
BB: Ah- hah.
MM: An’ this one is…“ Little Annie Rockie,” an’ its…“ Thou great are Thou” an’ “ How
Great Art Thou” ( unintelligible).
BB: Go ahead an’ sing it.
MM: Don’t want to sing it no more. ( Singing) “ After the Ball ( unintelligible), after the
ball is over, after the break of morn, after the dance is leaving after the stares are gone
many a hearts are, is aching, wish you could meet them all. May the home that have a
vanished after the ball.”
“ Little Annie Lou Lourney, she’s my sweet heart in her beauty. She’s my Andy,
I’m her June. Soon we’ll be ma, soon we’ll marry never to part. Little Annie Roonie is
my sweet heart.”
BB: “ Soul to Keep.”
MM: Ha.
BB: “ Soul to Keep.”
MM: Yes, my soul to keep let’s see. That’s then.
BB: Yeah, that you, the one mom use to sing here all the time night an’, an’ day
remember? “ My Soul to Keep,” she said she say it for a prayer.
MM: Oh Yeah, “ I lay me down to sleep I pray my, the Lord, I pray the Lord my soul to
take if I should die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
BB: An’ then there’s Humpty Dumpty.
MM: To there “ Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, all the
king’s horses an’ all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.”
BB: An’ then was.
MM: I believe that’s all there was to it.
BB: That’s pretty good Grandma.
MM: How about “ Oh Darling” the one that Hanse use ta sing all the time. “ Oh my, oh
darling how’s that, I oh my darling, I love you. Oh my darling I love you. Oh my Darling
I love you.” Then, then he’d sing another song, playing parts he’d sing la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la. Don’t believe I know that song very well.
BB: “ Oh My darling?”
MM: I believe that’s what he was trying to say, but he just hummed it.
BB: Oh. How about one, a pumpkin eater?
MM: Ha.
BB: Pumpkin eater.
MM: “ Pumpkin eater had a wife an’ couldn’t keep her, put her in a nut shell another he
kept her very very well.” That’s all I know of it.
BB: Okay.
MM: “ Show me the way to go home, I’m tired an’ I want ta go to bed. I had a little drink
about an hour ago an’ it went right to my head where I near Rome or land or sea an’ foe.
Although I’m tired an’ I want to go to bed show me the way to home.”
BB: Okay.
MM: “ I only want a body not a sweet heart. Body makes you thousands are broken,
broken hearted made I to… I only want a body not a sweet heart.”
BB: My Grandma Rose Stuart wrote this and she wanted it read at her funeral an’ my
brother Lonnie read this. “ After I’m gone. I know that some day I’ll pass on as all must
leave this earth. An’ when I do this I ask, Don’t be about my worth for after death
friends always say things that which aren’t quite true. So when I’m gone my relatives an’
friends I beg of you when I pass beyond your reach though you no longer see my faults
they’ll still be there for there’s still part of me.
“ If you like me as a saint please just be honest an’ don’t say what I was what I
ain’t, don’t pass pend their words when I leave this mortal shore, and mosey along the
earth no more. Don’t weep. Don’t she. Don’t sob. I beg of you. You will find it hard to
pay, don’t mope around an’ seem all blue, I might be better off than you. Don’t tell folks
I was a saint or anything I ain’t. If you have jam like that to spread, just hand it out
before I’m dead. If you like roses excuse me, if you have roses bless your souls just pin
one in my button hole while I’m alive an’ well today, don’t wait ‘ til I’m gone away out
on the other side.
By Rose Stuart.
“ If you have rose, roses, bless your souls, first pin one in my button hole while I’m alive
an’ well today don’t wait ‘ til I’m gone away on the other side.”
By Rose Stuart
BB: It’s on, just say whatever’s in your heart.
MM: Well, I hope I get better soon. ( Unintelligible) I did have to do that.
BB: That’s okay.
MM: I hope an’ pray to God that I, I get better soon with my legs an’ friends an’ relatives
has helped me quite a lot along especially Brenda, Bessie, an’ I think a lot often I know
the, the Lord will help me if I just ask in faith, works in an’ I can walk again. An’ do the
things ( unintelligible) are right. How along I hope an’ pray to God that all of us will feel
better when spring comes at least I hope so, an’ this doctor will help me to walk. By
golly, I will be thankful an’ I know everything will, ought to, should come out for my
sake so I can get out an’ move around an’ do the things I want to do, an’ I ask them to
bless all the friends an’ relatives an’ the bishop an’ his councilors an’ everybody that
loves me. ‘ Specially the senior citizens here waited on me hand and foot practically, an’
Lauren Johnson an’ very good to us. And we ask these things that to come put upon us
we do in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
BB: Amen… There you go say what you want.
MM: Well, the elders sure’s been good to me. They gave me a nice blessin’, an’ I
appreciate it an’ believe in it if it wasn’t for them comin’ [ to] give me a blessin’ then
afterwards I took a pigot up an’ felt fine. An’ these things come, been put upon me for
some purpose we ask thee to please help us an’ bless us to guide us through this life. I
pray we can all have faith ( unintelligible) there the day having, going to an’ I’ll be
blessed by him, this ask thee to be with us at all times. Guide us all, all times I ask
Heavenly Father to bless Hanse Miller that he may have the spirit of the Lord wherever
he may go to guide him through the things he should do an’ listen to his sister- in- law as
much as he can. An’ Heavenly Father help him an’ bless him, I ask it in the name of
Jesus Christ, Amen.
An’ Brenda been very good to me. Since she been here I don’t know what I’d
done without her. You’ve an’ been a dear soul to me all the times, an’ I hope an’ pray
she’ll write an’ I’ll do the same if I possibly can. Sure gonna, sure miss her. Blanch
Barner she [ is] another good friend of mine. I hope an’ pray she [ will] have faith in God,
we’ll bless her in everyway save she calls me an’ asks me how I am an’ everything
together we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen…
BB: Tape trouble. Have you sang your song on there?
MM: No, Yeah, oh yeah.
BB: Did you sing it.
MM: No, I just said it I, even my testimony.
BB: What’s this? My hands are all wet Grandma.
MM: Oh well, why did you want me to sing it or say it.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Well, I did say it, but I didn’t know how to start it out.
BB: You didn’t.
MM: Aw.
BB: Well go ahead, an’ I’m to finish washing the dishes.
MM: Well, I don’t sing it, it’s a testimony.
BB: Oh that’s good.
MM: You turn it on, an’ it’ll tell ya.
BB: It’s still going Grandma, you can still talk, yeah okay. That’s the one that stops it
right there so you can just talk all you want.
MM: An’ yeah.
BB: Okay.
MM: Yeah I’ve, I’ve said a good many things on there.
BB: Ha.
MM: I’ve said a good many things on there.
BB: Good.
MM: Yeah, I thought about something so, I wrote all over it, all over it.
BB: You did.
MM: Yeah.
BB: Well, let me see what’s you got, got your, my hands are pretty dry.
MM: Are they dry?
BB: Yeah, they are pretty dry now.
MM: I said don’t say no, an’ I’ll never miss it.
BB: Grandma, I don’t need this.
MM: You don’t take it I’ll be mad!
BB: Well I’m fine. Why don’t you keep it Grandma.
MM: No, no, no, no, no, no. I got plenty, don’t worry ‘ bout me.
BB: Are you sure Grandma.
MM: Yes, I got plenty I’ll never miss it.
BB: Are you sure?
MM: Yes, I’m sure I want you to have it ‘ cause you’ve been so dear to me, so dear.
BB: Oh, you don’t have to do this.
MM: I know. But I want, I saved it and saved it, I save it for you.
BB: You did?
MM: Yeah.
BB: Well Grandma, next time I come down I’ll, we can go into town if my car works an’
we can go shopping or something.
MM: Well, when the time comes, I love ya.
BB: I love you Grandma. You are a super neat Grandma.
MM: Well, I’m glad you said that, I’d like to have Lonnie’s address I’ve been, I can’t
find it, no where.
BB: You can’t? Well I’ll write down their address for you, okay.
MM: Yeah, I like to write to Dee.
BB: Okay.
MM: Dee and Lonnie. I thought I had it wrote down, but I can’t find it.
BB: Okay Grandma I’ll go write it down for you.
MM: In now you got, you wrote your name down on that tablet I saved that.
BB: Okay, well I’ll write all the names down an’ put ‘ em on the tablet deal okay, on that
board. Remember the board?
MM: Yeah, ah- hah.
BB: Okay. I’ll [ have them] written all down and put ‘ em on there for ya.
MM: Everybody thought that was a nice little and did she make that? I says some of it.
BB: Yeah okay, thank you Grandma. You sure are special.
MM: Oh I love ya all.
BB: Yeah, I love you too, and you too.
MM: Yeah, yeah, he’s been good to me he tries.
BB: Yeah.
MM: To be good to me an’ I’ll probably have Mrs. Johnson tomorrow morning.
BB: She’ll come in an’ work, an’ help ya.
MM: Yes, she says she ain’t going on her trip now. So she may, she’s may bring the
washing back an’ then she takes some more.
BB: Yeah.
MM: Well, I’m gonna have to tell Mrs. Johnson to bring ‘ em back.
BB: Well, here’s my girlfriends. I gotta go now Grandma. I washed almost all the dishes
for you, see ‘ em down there?
MM: Ha, maybe they can’t get in.
BB: Well, if the roads are too muddy for ‘ em to come in, I’m gonna pack up my stuff, I’ll
be back in just a minute…
MM: Well God bless ya. They’s over there, Brennie they’s over the road… They made it
on the road alright. Yeah, the roads alright I think, I don’t think they’ll get stuck… They
won’t get, they musta called from Logan. They must, they must a called from Logan.
BB: Yeah, well Grandma, I’ve gotta go now am I’ll— is it alright if I just mail ya the
addresses of Lonnie and them?
MM: Ah- hah.
BB: Okay then Grandma I’m gonna go now, thank you for everything.
MM: Oh golly, I’m going miss my baby doll.
BB: I’m going to miss you Grandma, I’ll write you a letter and send you everybody’s
address.
MM: You better gosh, shucks I don’t know, I hope I get better though.
BB: You will, your legs are lookin’ really good Grandma.
MM: Will you write to Bessie or call her, oh you told her.
BB: Yeah, ah- hah.
MM: Well, if I don’t, I know it costs quite a bit to go on a airplane, but still I have to save
some money to go.
BB: Well now Grandma, mom and dad will send ya the money so you can go, so you
don’t have to worry about the money okay.
MM: Oh, I don’t want to do and that.
BB: Yeah well, maybe you can buy them a sundae or something when you get back there,
and it’ll call it even.
MM: Well, they can, maybe I’ll, I, I’m gonna talk to the doctor an’ tell ‘ em I got to go
somewhere if you can’t make this leg better I’ll have to go somewhere to my daughter’s.
BB: Okay.
MM: Bet they take care of me.
BB: Okay.
MM: Have they made it down.
BB: Yep well, I gotta go now.
MM: Okay bye- bye.
BB: I love you grandma.
MM: I love you too. I, I’ll copy this off.
BB: Okay.